Nevermore
by Mille Cartes
Summary: Having returned to his former strength, Phantom decides to visit one last person before moving forward with his life.


"Many things have changed since then."

Ariant. A town ruled by oppression. It had been hundreds of years and not a damn thing had changed. Why it surprised him however, he denied to himself. He didn't want to admit that he seemed to have some semblance of naivety about him. He only wished the world around him would change.

And yet… the Phantom then and the Phantom now were two different people. And the world around him had stayed the same. Advances in technology didn't justify the suffering people had to endure. Things were back at square one. It's like the royalty of those days, the story of his heists, people in Ariant didn't learn from them. Nobles were still abusing the common folk. They had people slaving over conveyor belts, refining lidium day in and day out. The disgusting, ugly purple gem stones. While he had no problem stealing them once they were in the hands of others, taking a gem out of the bin of refined rocks would be just cruel. Especially with the lengths they used to go through to punish the workers for simple mistakes, attempting to justify it to the public that the actions were "out of line."

Phantom didn't linger around the town very long. Instead, he just looked out at it, from the edge of the main road, his cloak flapping in the desert winds. The moon was bright, providing enough light for him to see where he needed to go–Provided, it was still there centuries later.

Even though the sands had changed, the dunes shifting with the passage of time, he remembered the path by heart. There was no longer a trail, and while he generally strayed from it from time to time, Phantom had taken a compass at request of Gaston, wishing to see his master return within the day rather than the month. Eventually he had found his old vault.

"Great," he thought as he ran a finger along the door, looking at all the accumulated dust on the outside. "If the vault is here… Then that means…" Eagerly, he began tracing along the edge of the vault, its doors embedded in the stone, claiming a cavern for his own. Once he had reached the end of the slope of the cavern mouth, he walked ontop and went to the back side.

And there it lay. After all these years, it was still there. In rather poor condition from the weather, but there was no mistaking it. The same marker he placed for his master Raven's grave still stood.

As if the man himself was standing before him, he gave a sheepish grin, his fingers rubbing at the nape of his neck before he began speaking. Phantom wasn't quite sure what to say or even where to begin, so letting it all pour out was the best idea. After all, no body lay here. Not even a marking to determine who it was. It was their own private space in this world. Though now, the only one that existed was him.

"You know, I don't really do sentimental things like this. Coming back. Speaking to a grave I made for you. You really ought to consider yourself fortunate. After all, nobody else was mourning your demise. The things people said after it happened… Well, I shouldn't be surprised. After all, humanity itself is disgusting. Not once have they managed to surprise me when it comes to things like this… Still… It's been a few hundred years. And a lot of things have happened. I met someone…"

His voice trailed for a moment, cutting off after saying such. As if his master were truly there, hunching over some perch with a curious look on his face, getting ready to tease the blond over such things, Phantom winced lightly as he continued. It was strange. To be able to feel one's master berating them like a child over such silly things, after all these years… What a unique feeling. Maybe Raven's spirit was listening in after all.

"It didn't work out. A lot of things happened. I still miss her every day. Somewhere in it all, I became a fool. I sought noble causes, after her words. And I suppose now that makes me a hero…"

Hollow laughter emanated from the mans lips. A hero. To think that he of all people, would join such a noble cause. But that's what the world knew their group as. The heroes. And if it wasn't for someone like Aria, he'd simply have turned away and been forgotten. Nothing more than a fairy tale of a man–Not that he didn't feel like he wasn't one already.

Kneeling down beside the grave, he basked in the silence. Was all this talking even reaching the man? Probably not. It was just a marker, one he made on his own. The fact he actually made it rather than having it crafted for him was a surprise, but he told himself that the feelings would reach the man, somehow.

"When you're dead, it just ends, doesn't it?" He choked out, tears welling up in the corners of his eyes as he knelt down in the desert sand. "You just don't come back. You're not able to hear people's words, you don't see how they feel, right? You're just gone forever? Because you decided you wanted some stupid paintings and statues and vases. I never told you how I felt about that stupid crap. It's ugly. Hideous in fact. Why the hell did you want it? Why didn't you back off? You knew they placed a bomb in there… You had to have known. That's why you went alone right? C-Come on… Say something!"

Slamming his hand into the ground resulted in nothing more than a flurry of sand everywhere. And perhaps it was just what he needed. It slipped away from him for a moment that he wasn't yelling at his master. No, he was only yelling at the last vessel the man had left–If it could be considered as such. After all, Raven had no way of knowing this was made for him. It was only constructed upon the man's death. No enchantments, no markings, nothing. Phantom had done a rather shabby job of constructing it but it was indeed a grave marker. At least, to him it was.

Looking back up to face it, the tears began spilling out of his eyes and fell onto the ground. Raven was gone. There was no bringing him back to yell at him. There was no waiting for a lecture. There was nobody to tease him, to reassure him, to give him faith, to boost his ego. There was just this makeshift grave and the fact that the man was lost somewhere among the shifting sands that passed during these hundreds of years. There wasn't even a corpse. But would that have made him feel better? To see his master's bones beneath the sands? Probably not.

Picking himself up slowly, he wiped away the tears and began brushing himself off, attempting to get the sand out of his hair and off his clothing.

"That's fine…" Phantom remarked to the grave one last time as he looked down at it. "You don't have to say anything. I need to be the one to do the realizing. It's time to move on. To forget about all this. There's no more Raven. There's no more Aria. No more Freud. You're all somewhere out there, among the stars. But you're not here… But I am… I'm here. So I'll walk forward. And I'll surpass you even further. I'll go down in history. I'll make a bigger explosion than I did back then. So, thank you."

Pulling the marker out of the sand, he threw it as far as possible. When it finally landed, it was some distance away from him, at the base of a dune. With time, the sand would engulf it, and there would be no more grave. There would be no more Raven.

Without hesitation, the blond began walking forward. The tension in the air had settled, as if one of the many metaphorical shackles of his past had snapped. For now, he was free to breathe easy. To walk forward.

* * *

One I came up with on a whim. Also transferred over from my wordpress. Also as you can see I'm really bad at putting things in categories... I need to get better with that. Or help.


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